Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) units are standardized units adapted to be inserted within a chassis. A specification developed according to a multi-source agreement (MSA) involving a plurality of equipment vendors provides a mechanical specification describing the size of the SFP unit, so as to ensure that all SFP fully-compliant and partially-compliant units may be inserted smoothly within one same chassis, i.e. inside cages, ganged cages, stacked cages and belly-to-belly cages. Additionally, the MSA specification provides an electrical interface specification for internal rear connectors allowing exchange of signals and data between rear connectors of SFP units and various components in a chassis backplane.
SFP units may be designed with various types of external connectors, such as coaxial connectors, optical connectors, and any other type of electrical connector.
SFP units are small in dimensions. Traditionally, SFP units were essentially passive and their main function was to allow interconnection between external active components, connected to SFP external connectors and active components of a chassis in which the SFP units were inserted.
Recently introduced SFP units comprise active components capable of processing data and signals received at their front or rear connectors. These improved SFP units provide a wide new range of possibilities for integration and miniaturization of data and signal processing features. However, the small size of standard SFP units may limit those possibilities since their front panels may only support a small size of external connectors, while their small internal size provides limited room for integrating processing modules.
Therefore, there is a need for new techniques allowing connection of an increased number of connectors and/or integration of an increased number of processing modules within SFP units.